Calamity (Callie) Barnstable isn’t surprised to learn she’s the sole beneficiary of her late father’s estate, though she is shocked to discover she has inherited a house in the town of Marketville—a house she didn’t know he had. However, there are conditions attached to Callie’s inheritance: she must move to Marketville, live in the house, and solve her mother’s murder.Callie’s not keen on … keen on dredging up a thirty-year-old mystery, but if she doesn’t do it, there’s a scheming psychic named Misty Rivers who hopes to expose the Barnstable family secrets herself. Determined to thwart Misty and fulfill her father’s wishes, Callie accepts the challenge. But is she ready to face the skeletons hidden in the attic?
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Skeletons in the Attic by Judy Penz Sheluk is a cozy mystery. It’s the first book from the Marketville Mystery series.
This is an incredible book. I am a huge fan of mysteries and this one had everything I usually look for in a great story from this genre.
The plot is simple, we follow Callie’s short journey on discovering what happened to her mother. There is so much suspense and enough
twists that will shock you. The author’s writing skills are phenomenal and so are her descriptions of each scene. It gives you the
feeling that you are watching a movie, it’s so vivid. The characters were great as well. Callie was amazing, she was handling everything so well and her detective skills were on point. My second favorite character was Ella, I love a good old lady character.
The only thing that I didn’t really like was towards the end, I can’t reveal it because it would be a major spoiler. I can only
say that it is a sore subject for me and it pissed me off. Other than that it is a great book.
I enjoyed reading it so much. It kept me hooked from the beginning till the end and I will rate it with 4.5 stars.
This review is for the audio book.
I enjoyed this book and it would have got a five star review from me but the ending fell a little bit flat, it ended so suddenly and I was left thinking huh. Other than that I did enjoy it. The mystery was different and the unusual circumstances grabbed my from the start. The characters were quirky with Psychics and tarot reading and I spent most of the book wondering who Calamity should trust or befriend. This meant there was plenty of suspects and twists in the story, as well as clues and false clues, I did get a little bit confused as to what was planted and what was real. There is no ghosts or haunting in this book which I thought there might have been from reading the blurb and it did make me hesitate, so don’t let that put you off listening to this mystery . A good start to a new series, I just wish the ending wasn’t so abrupt.
Callie is surprised to find she has just inherited a house from her dead father, that she knows nothing about. One the condition that she lives in it for a year and solve her mother’s disappearance before living there permanently or selling it. The house was the old family home and the neighbours all know more about her and her circumstances than she does. But who to trust?. Can Callie piece together the clues left behind and discover what happened to her mother after all these years?
The narrator was good and gave each character there own voice.
I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request from audiobooksunleashed and have voluntarily left this review.
“Skeletons in the Attic” will grab your attention and won’t let go. It is a skilfully crafted mystery where nothing is as it seems, full of twists and turns.
Calamity (Callie) Barnstable’s father has recently died when his faulty harness inexplicably gives way causing him to fall from the thirteenth floor of a building under construction. Things go from straightforward to problematic when her father’s executor, Leith Hampton a criminal lawyer, reads her father’s Last Will & Testament. It seems that she has inherited a house, but not just any house, her childhood home. She had been unaware her father had kept it all these years.
This shocking revelation becomes perplexing when Leith reads a startling provision. Callie must move into Sixteen Snapdragon Circle and live there for a period of one year at which time she would be free to keep the house or dispose of it. Here is where the mystery begins. She must not only move to Marketville and live in the house but she must solve her mother’s murder.
The author skilfully creates an irresistible compulsion to read on in search of the next clue that will surely lead to the truth but the truth is elusive. The reader is swept along in a current of suspicion and fear as Callie struggles to regain her childhood memories.
Judy Penz Sheluk is brilliant at creating a character you can identify with. She truly is a master of her craft.
Be sure to read Judy’s Amazon International Bestselling series Glass Dolphin Mysteries and Marketville Mysteries, first two in the Detective Byron Mystery Series from HarperCollins. Also, look for her short story collections The Best Laid Plans, Live Free or Tri and Unhappy Endings short stories, Plan D, Live Free or Die, Beautiful Killer, Saturdays with Bronwyn and Goulaigans.
Skeletons in the Attic: A Marketville Mystery, Volume 1, my first read from author Judy Penz Sheluk and the first in the Marketville Mystery series. Well-written mystery with intriguing characters. 8-hours 33-minute/400-pages of enjoyment. No spoilers here, buy the book, read & review the book. I was given an Audible copy of this book in June a year ago & am finally voluntarily reading & reviewing it. Claira Jordyn’s narration adds to the book’s enjoyment. Up next is Past & Present: A Marketville Mystery, Book 2. (RIP Marley January 20, 2014 – July 24, 2018).
I received this book for free. I am voluntarily posting this review and any opinions posted herein are my own.
This is the first book in the Marketville Mystery series. If you have read this author’s other series – Glass Dolphin Mysteries – you will find some crossover in locations and a few characters.
One of the strengths of this book is the MC Callie [Calamity], who is very relatable. She is surrounded by a group of friends, who help in various ways to solve the mystery of Callie’s mother’s disappearance. I really enjoyed the mystery and how several of the characters are presented in such a way that you are not sure if they are friends or adversaries to Callie. What I felt to be a bit of the downfall of this story was the ending. I do not want to go into any detail as that would be a big spoiler but suffice it to say that the wrap up seemed rushed and to me, a bit unbelievable. I also found Callie’s reaction to the solution of the mystery to be oddly lackluster – which seemed to be a bit [for lack of a better term] out of character.
The narrator, Claira Jordyn, has a wonderful warm voice which is very pleasant. Her voice did a great job in conveying the emotionalism of Callie’s character.
Skeletons in the Attic is the first in Judy Penz Sheluk’s Marketville Mystery series. We meet our protagonist Callie Barnstable at her attorney’s office ready to read her recently deceased father’s will. She was reared by her father as an only child. Her mother had disappeared years earlier when Callie was only six. Much to her surprise, Callie learns that her father has left her a home in the small city of Marketville north of Toronto, a home that she knew nothing about. And, to add to this sudden mystery, she finds that she is required to live in the house for a minimum of one year. Her father made clear that he wants Callie to find out who murdered her mother during her time in the house. Callie complies, moves to Marketville, and immediately finds herself acting as an amateur sleuth trying to make sense of circles within circles of family and neighbor relationships.
This cozy mystery has specific strengths. First are the characters, many of whom are compelling personalities on the verge on being quite eccentric. Among them are a couple of tarot card readers, a very well-informed gossipy neighbor, a woman with man troubles, and a handsome contractor next door named Royce whom Callie hires to work on her fixer-upper, newly-inherited home. Sheluk has a gift for presenting characters that at times seem as allies to Callie, and at other times, potential threats. That keeps us guessing and adds an element of danger to the mystery. Along the way, Callie finds a series of clues in the form of physical objects that appear to be giving her messages: tarot cards, hidden jewelry (hidden but not too well-hidden), and a skeleton in her attic. Another strength is the setting. This is a part of the world I have never visited. My adventures in Canada have all been in the west. I consider setting to be an important part of any good story. Sheluk doesn’t fail in placing this story in environmental context.
This is a quite an enjoyable read for mystery lovers although the final pages left me with questions. We find that the mystery of her mother’s disappearance is linked to some rather implausible behavior on the part of a few family members. Or maybe not. Human beings behave implausibly all the time, especially when it comes to familial interpersonal interactions. Rather disconcerting, though, was Callie’s rather subdued, even flat, reaction to the revelations in the final pages. She appears to lack curiosity or any emotional reaction which seemed somewhat at odds with how she had reacted repeatedly to other unfolding events earlier in the story. I would like to have known more about she viewed the revelations and about she intends to go forward in the future. Recommended.
I enjoyed this book and found it a quick read. Ending is a bit rushed, but still satisfying! I’m looking forward to reading more!
I loved this book. An old locket, tarot cards and a skeleton in the attic…Just when I thought I figured it all out, everything changed. Looking forward to the second book in the series. Narration was great, with good pacing.
Also, I thought it was fun to have a small crossover from the Glass Dolphin series when she needed help identifying the authenticity of a couple of objects.
I received a copy in exchange for my honest review.
family-dynamics, female-sleuth, friendship, missing-persons, Toronto, cosy-mystery
A good investigator keeps digging with due diligence, an exceptional one knows when to call in friends and new acquaintances. Callie’s investigation is excellent. Anyone can go off track when there is more than one person driving the misdirections, and when most of the people being questioned are skilled liars it is hard to identify the red herrings. The publisher’s blurb is a good start, but reading this book is soooo worth the time!
Claira Jordyn gives voice to all the disparate characters, even the despicable ones, and is simply the finest narrator for this book!
I won a free audiobook in a giveaway. Super!
The Mystery of the Missing Mother
As an (ignorant) American, I hadn’t realized that Canada had tried the Prohibition experiment too, and earlier than the U.S. Just a throwaway comment grousing about the government-run liquor stores made me take a second to check Wikipedia. That this well-written tale of a missing mother made me think and learn beyond following the clues was my own first clue that this was going to be an extra-enjoyable read–or, listen, in this case, as I allowed narrator Claira Jordyn to read aloud while I enjoyed breakfast and other otherwise non-brain activities. Intriguing premise, logical clue-following research (including hours in the library), and a surprise ending.
Wow! Let me say I loved this audiobook. Judy Penz Sheluk has spun a web that gets you caught from the first few words. I found myself wanting to listen to more and more because I loved the story and the narrator. Claira Jordyn narrates this audible book and she is wonderful. Her voice was perfect for developing this story. Judy I hope you write more in this series.
Callie is the main character and she is someone I would like to meet in real life. In fact all the characters in this book seem very real. I was gifted this audiobook by the author with the understanding that I would leave an honest review.
5/5 Hidden Trunks of Delight!
I am thrilled to have joined in on this reading adventure penned by Judy Penz Sheluk. She provided wonderful characters who act and react in real ways, wrote well the conversations and descriptions to keep me ‘turning the page,’ and had me guessing about who, what, and why. The ‘cliffhanger’ style end might be a concern, but what happens next will be great for a second book. The ‘right’ turn into tarot cards had me googling and getting off the shelf my own set of cards and instruction book. I see lots of wonderful books in the future…
Didn’t like the end!
Calamity (Callie) Barnstable is surprised to learn of about a house she has just inherited from her father. A house she knew nothing about. Her father has left stipulations that she is to live there and discover the truth behind her mother’s disappearance/murder. At first, Callie is very hesitant about digging into a 30-year mystery but as she finds out more about her mother the more she wants to solve this mystery.
I was drawn into the book. This book was full of twists and turns and red herrings. Every time I thought I knew what happened to Callie’s mother Callie found something new out that changed everything. I had trouble putting this book down, the storyline moved at a pretty quick pace. The characters are likable and interesting. The setting of the small town helps make the mystery more intimate so you felt you know the characters.
I listened to the audio version of this book the narrator Claira Jordyn does a wonderful job with her voice acting. Even with the story being told from Callie’s POV Jordyn does a great job voicing each character.
I received a copy of this book at my request, and I have voluntarily left this review. All thoughts and opinions are my own and in no way have been influenced.
A mystery with no…..
It strikes me that there doesn’t seem to be a explanation for the stars that are given. So I thought I’d start giving my take on it.
1 horrible no redeeming qualities.
2 there are redeeming qualities.
3 good worth reading, or well written but not my cup of tea.
4 great but there’s something off.
5 loved it.
A good beginning for a series.
I can’t wait for more of this, I want to say more about this story but I absolutely hate spoilers, so I won’t go into details.
Reasons I enjoyed this audio book:
Wonderful characters, Page-turner, Great world building, Unpredictable, Original, Realistic, Easy-to-read, Entertaining, Twisted.
Bookshelves/tags:
clean, contemporary, mystery, recorded, series.
This Audiobook was given to me for free at my request from the publisher, author or narrator and I provided this unbiased voluntary review.